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2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

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  • Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

    Originally posted by Old Pio View Post
    That sounds about right. The biggest problem with defense planning is anticipating what the needs and threats are going to be 20 years down the road.
    That's the fun part. I'm sure in 1925 the conventional wisdom was that the next world war would be won by dreadnoughts the size of cities.

    I read somebody somewhere saying "a UAV the size of a desk will be taken down by 10 UAVs the size of a model airplane, which will be taken down by 100 UAVs the size of a paper clip, which will be taken down by 1000 UAVs the size of a miniscrew..."
    Last edited by Kepler; 05-02-2012, 04:56 PM.
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    • Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

      Originally posted by Old Pio View Post

      We appear to be moving in the direction of taking men out of the planes. But I'm not sure that would "completely bypass our military leaders." Who would be in charge? Health and Human Services? Anyway, I'm confident that e-mail paints an unrealistically pessimistic picture.

      Nobody ever asks for a rematch against the United States Air Force. That's because they're all dead.
      The only thing I could think of would have been some sort of ground to air "hyper missile" where they go 20x the speed of sound and close on our planes too fast for us to do much about it, and someone magically developed them and a) we didn't because we viewed it as impossible or not important and b) we didn't notice someone was testing such a thing.

      That kind of "bypass of our military leaders". The idea is so unlikely that if it occurred, I'd almost accuse the other nation of secretly making contact with an advanced alien race.

      *****http://www.csicon.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Aliens-meme.jpg******
      "I went over the facts in my head, and admired how much uglier the situation had just become. Over the years I've learned that ignorance is more than just bliss. It's freaking orgasmic ecstasy".- Harry Dresden, Blood Rites


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      • Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

        Originally posted by Kepler View Post
        That's the fun part. I'm sure in 1925 the conventional wisdom was that the next world war would be won by dreadnoughts the size of cities.
        Reminds me of an old (by my standards) classic (requires JSTOR access)
        http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.230...21100765035951
        1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1995 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2012(!)

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        • Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

          Originally posted by bronconick View Post
          The only thing I could think of would have been some sort of ground to air "hyper missile" where they go 20x the speed of sound and close on our planes too fast for us to do much about it, and someone magically developed them and a) we didn't because we viewed it as impossible or not important and b) we didn't notice someone was testing such a thing.

          That kind of "bypass of our military leaders". The idea is so unlikely that if it occurred, I'd almost accuse the other nation of secretly making contact with an advanced alien race.

          *****http://www.csicon.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Aliens-meme.jpg******
          We do tend to notice these things, don't we? Even so, every time the balloon goes up, we get ugly surprises. IED's for instance. No matter how much planning we do.
          Last edited by Old Pio; 05-02-2012, 05:05 PM.
          2011 Poser of the Year & Pulitzer Prize winning machine gunner.

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          • Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

            Originally posted by Kepler View Post
            That's the fun part. I'm sure in 1925 the conventional wisdom was that the next world war would be won by dreadnoughts the size of cities.

            I read somebody somewhere saying "a UAV the size of a desk will be taken down by 10 UAVs the size of a model airplane, which will be taken down by 100 UAVs the size of a paper clip, which will be taken down by 1000 UAVs the size of a miniscrew..."
            Back in the 80's we were very concerned about the Soviet navy, particularly a new class, the Kirov cruisers. Tom Clancy did a column quoting a Los Angeles attack submarine skipper (think Bart Mancuso in "Hunt for Red October") as saying when he sees a Kirov class cruiser, he sees a Navy Cross waiting to happen.

            Any day you can work "dreadnought" into a post is a good day.
            Last edited by Old Pio; 05-02-2012, 06:08 PM.
            2011 Poser of the Year & Pulitzer Prize winning machine gunner.

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            • Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

              Originally posted by Old Pio View Post
              We do tend to notice these things, don't we? Even so, every time the balloon goes up, we get ugly surprises. IED's for instance. No matter how much planning we do.
              That's the "disadvantage" of not having constant wars. An army guy I work with says in addition to all the other advantages the US military has over other nations' conventional forces is that we're blooded. War plans work about as well as any other kind of human behavior plan, so it's "nice" to have recently had experience to get the kinks out.

              It seems amazing that Desert Storm came off so well, considering that US forces had not seen major action for, what, 16 years?
              Last edited by Kepler; 05-02-2012, 05:29 PM.
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              • Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

                Originally posted by Kepler View Post
                It seems amazing that Desert Storm came off so well, considering that US forces had not seen major action for, what, 16 years?
                You're not counting Grenada?
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                • Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

                  Originally posted by Kepler View Post
                  That's the "disadvantage" of not having constant wars. An army guy I work with says in addition to all the other advantages the US military has over other nations' conventional forces is that we're blooded. War plans work about as well as any other kind of human behavior plan, so it's "nice" to have recently had experience to get the kinks out.

                  It seems amazing that Desert Storm came off so well, considering that US forces had not seen major action for, what, 16 years?
                  So true. Rumsfeld got hammered for apparantly being flip when he said "you go to war with the army that you have," in response to the lack of up-armored Hummers. It sure as h*ll would have been nice to have them. And now we do. But prior to the start of that conflict, apparantly, nobody thought we needed 'em. Or at least nobody important enough to make it happen. There are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of other priorities that must be considered and decisions made as well. Like "we don't need no stinkin' winter uniforms for the troops on the Russian front, we'll be in Moscow before winter sets in." Sadly, these oversights usually wind up in loss of life.

                  Let's get back to the Iowas. In "Red Storm Rising," Clancy writes about a non-nuclear war between the Soviets and the US. At some point, the Russians take our AF base at Keflavik in Iceland. When we subsequently go on the offensive, the Navy wheels up an Iowa. The Russian commander is looking through his glasses when he sees 9 muzzle flashes and turns to his next in line and says: "Mother of God." He knows that 9 2700 pound AP rounds are heading his way. Followed by 9 more. Followed by 9 more, etc. etc.

                  When Secretary of the Navy John Lehman was up on Capitol Hill proposing bringing the battleships out of mothballs he was prepared for the claims of opponants that "they aren't very accurate." He'd arranged for a firing mission on Vieques, then overlaid the craters with a map of Capitol Hill. Total destruction. And that argument essentially went away. As I say, I wish we'd kept one of them on active duty as a sort of national flag ship.
                  Last edited by Old Pio; 05-02-2012, 07:19 PM.
                  2011 Poser of the Year & Pulitzer Prize winning machine gunner.

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                  • Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

                    Originally posted by Priceless View Post
                    You're not counting Grenada?
                    Don't forget Nicaragua. At one point we were taking fire from the 7th story of a building. A spectre gunship was called in and suddenly it was a 6 story building. Problem solved.
                    2011 Poser of the Year & Pulitzer Prize winning machine gunner.

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                    • Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

                      Originally posted by amherstblackbear View Post
                      Reminds me of an old (by my standards) classic (requires JSTOR access)
                      http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.230...21100765035951
                      Couple that with the development of numerous new weapons systems that far out stripped anything seen before and had never been used in combat. I think the two best books on the run up to the war are "The Guns of August" and "The Zimmerman Telegram," both by Barbara Tuchman.
                      2011 Poser of the Year & Pulitzer Prize winning machine gunner.

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                      • Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

                        Ah. Princess Summerfall Winterspring says she only listed herself as Indian because she wanted Cochise to invite her to the faculty dining room for a pemmican burger. Right. And she still insists somebody in her family was Indian (and was presumably selling non small pox infected blankets outside the fort) despite the absense of evidence.

                        Also please note, she suggests she's a victim (this is an involuntary response among libs) because she's "a woman."

                        http://news.bostonherald.com/news/po...ome&position=1
                        Last edited by Old Pio; 05-02-2012, 07:06 PM.
                        2011 Poser of the Year & Pulitzer Prize winning machine gunner.

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                        • Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

                          Originally posted by Old Pio View Post
                          this is an involuntary response among [her ilk]
                          Since she's from Harvard, I thought I might mangle a quote from Love Story (actually filmed at Harvard, I think) in her honor: "Being a leftist politician means you never are able to say 'I'm sorry'."

                          Weird how they never ever make a mistake....Imagine if she had merely said "oops, my bad" at the start of this episode, it would already have blown over [insert smoke signal joke].
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                          • Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

                            Saw an interesting article that recommends picking Jindal has VP. I think its a pretty medeocre choice...he doesn't bring that much (LA is probably already in the tank).

                            Rubio is the rage, but he's still not ideal. He is (1) good lookin (2) hispanic (3) from FL...which makes him probably the best the GOP has. But he's young...7 years younger than BO was 4 yrs ago. This leaves a pretty sharp Romney relying on his 4 years as governor in tiny Mass as the centerpiece of the ticket's experience. An also sharp Obama ticket with Biden came in in 2008 with a pretty decent combo were better ready to lead the country than these two would be.

                            Originally posted by FreshFish View Post
                            Since she's from Harvard, I thought I might mangle a quote from Love Story (actually filmed at Harvard, I think) in her honor: "Being a leftist politician means you never are able to say 'I'm sorry'."
                            If true, 2008 taught it goes both ways.
                            Go Gophers!

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                            • Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

                              Originally posted by FreshFish View Post
                              Since she's from Harvard, I thought I might mangle a quote from Love Story (actually filmed at Harvard, I think) in her honor: "Being a leftist politician means you never are able to say 'I'm sorry'."
                              And of course "Being a rightie politician means you never are willing to say 'I'm sorry'."

                              At least one scene from "Love Story" was shot at Cornell -- the scene where his father meets him after the "Hordes from the North" game (which, fittingly, we win). It is right outside Barton Hall.

                              The game scenes were IIRC shot at the old Harvard rink (Watson) using the Dartmouth hockey team playing both sides.
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                              • Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

                                Originally posted by Kepler View Post
                                That's the fun part. I'm sure in 1925 the conventional wisdom was that the next world war would be won by dreadnoughts the size of cities.

                                I read somebody somewhere saying "a UAV the size of a desk will be taken down by 10 UAVs the size of a model airplane, which will be taken down by 100 UAVs the size of a paper clip, which will be taken down by 1000 UAVs the size of a miniscrew..."
                                But don't forget the 1922 SALT (er Washington Naval Treaty) talks followed by 1930 SALT II (London Naval Treaty).

                                We got CV's 2 and 3 (Lexington and Saratoga) out of it. I think Japan got the Kaga and Akagi.
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